Session Description:
The Women’s Consultation will continue its focus on “inter” issues as a significant way to address multiple fault lines in the church and the world as well as to advance concrete action for peace and justice, solidarity and reconciliation. Our panels in 2013 and 2014 delved into interreligiosity and interculturality, respectively, as meaningful ways to engage and begin to redress women’s religious and social inequalities as a result of racism/white privilege, Western privilege, and religious exclusivism. Our call for 2015 emerges from intersectionality, or the theory and method in feminist studies which stresses viewing wo/men’s experiences through a multifocal lens, as refracted by gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, dis/ability, nationality, religion, and many other factors which condition and co-constitute human identity, both individually and in community. Intersectionality can thus prove fruitful for attending to the multiple voices within the sensus fidelium, all of the faithful who comprise the church and the church’s work in and for the world.

In keeping with both feminist theories of intersectionality and with the convention theme of the sensus fidelium, the Women’s Consultation invites proposals on the following topics:

global Catholicisms with respect to opportunities and obstacles for women in the church and society;

seeking solidarity, reconciliation, and liberation with marginalized communities in the church and world by listening to and with others, among other approaches;

dynamic connections between beauty and justice (such as those explored in womanist and feminist theological aesthetics), in particular women’s experiences of and struggles for well-being and/or liberation through ritual/liturgy or through the creative and performing arts (e.g., poetry, music, dance, theatre); and

any one of the above topics or another topic specifically related to women, theology, and the local church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in particular, or in the midwestern United States, in general.

Submission Guidelines:

Proposal should be between 200 and 500 words.

You should also include a 100 words précis that will be posted on the CTSA website should your paper be accepted.

Include full name and contact information of all participants, including e-mail.

Indicate whether your presenters will be requiring A/V equipment.

CTSA guidelines require that those making proposals ordinarily be associate or full members in good standing with their dues paid up. Anyone with an associate or full membership application on file can also submit a proposal if they expect to be accepted for membership in the upcoming June convention.

N.B.: In order to encourage broad participation across the society and to promote the visibility of the work of scholars from under-represented groups, the CTSA Board of Directors limits white scholars to one speaking role at the convention, including the Women’s Consultation.

Deadline: September 1, 2014. Please submit proposals to: Rosemary P. Carbine at rcarbine@whittier.edu. Proposals will be evaluated by all members of the Women’s Consultation steering committee. You will be notified by e-mail whether your paper has been accepted by September 14, 2014.